Monday, May 16, 2016

Swashbuckler - never say never again

In September last year I did my first ever half ironman/middle distance event in the New Forest. I swore I'd never do another one again. Then, a month or so later, Rhiannon announced that she was going to enter the Swashbuckler middle distance. She was trying to convince the rest of us intermediate riders that we should enter. I wasn't convinced but at some point I must have told Thea that I wouldn't enter unless she entered as well, thinking that she would never enter. Then she surprised me one day and told me she'd entered. Damn it, I thought. So of course I then had to sign up. We were joined by Tamara, Emma D, Harriet, the Lizzies and Lindsay.

The training was inconsistent, and just seemed to involve a lot of activity interspersed with exhaustion, the horrible cough/cold combo and an inability to run further than 14 km and not much faster than around 7 minutes per km. I was tired, slow, aching and was very nervous running up to the event. Everyone kept telling me that I'd done it before, I should be OK, but I wasn't sure whether it made it better, or worse!

The day arrived, one of those beautiful English mornings that start with mist and promise to be nice later. We were all nervous, and there were several hugs exchanged. Six of us were in the second swim, and that was the last I saw of most of them for the rest of the day...

The swim was a lot saltier than I expected. I didn't really think about the fact that it would be high tide, thus the river would be full of sea water. It was extremely buoyant as well, which isn't something I've experenced a lot. It wasn't as much of a moshpit as I'm used to with open water races, which was nice, and I managed to get into a rhythm, even if there was this guy who seemed determined to backstroke across me (it seems backstroke is now allowed). It did start to feel like hard work and the water tasted HORRIBLE (I really thought I'd be sick!) but my overriding issue was the swim cap. Several times it felt like it was about to slip off (the issue is I have a large head and normal caps don't really fit), so I had to stop and tread water at least twice to try and fix it - very annoying! By the time it came to the end of the swim, it was pretty much fallen off... I was happy to be out by 41 minutes, but it seemed that everyone else had made it out. I faffed far too much in transition trying to sort myself out and getting ready for the bike.

On the bike the views were glorious. It occured to me that I should have a race in the New Forest every year, it's such a beautiful area. The ride was quite flat and I enjoyed the majority of it. The only issues I had were that I'd lost the straw to my magic handlebar bottle, so I'd had to improvise with a couple of ordinary straws, which kept floating to the top of my water bottle, not great. I had to keep pushing the straw back into the bottle so that I could have a drink...
There are moments when you cycle that you end up in a dark place, which is full of pain and profanity. This was mostly directed towards my saddle, which felt after a while that I was sat on a metal bar... perhaps it's time to get a new saddle. The marshalls were absolutely brilliant, especially the one near where I'd stayed the night before, who was so full of enthusiasm it really helped keep me going. I was desperate to stop for a rest, but I decided to get to the half way point before stopping. When I got to 45 km, I was in the middle of a village, so of course I didn't want to stop. In the end I didn't stop and kept going through the pain and the annoyance of having to sort out my straw throughout the whole ride. I kept thinking of my difficult climb in Malaga where I just kept going through the pain and the desire to stop. It was so good to finally come round towards Beaulieu for the final time and then into Buckler's Hard. It took me 3 hours and 42 minutes, a PB for me for the bike.

On to the run, and the sun had finally come out, of course. There were loads of people doing their second lap as I started off, after grabbing some water and "energy drink" from the aid station. The energy drink they gave us was a bizarre mixture that tasted weird but did help a little on my run. I essentially ended up running between aid stations and stopping at each one for a bit of a pep talk. Again the marshalls were just lovely and brilliant. I had both Harriet and Lizzie run past me cheering me on, and near the end of the first lap, many people saying "not far to the end". I had to keep telling them that I still had another lap to go, sadly! I had to struggle back up the hill in Buckler's Hard past the finish line and carry on to the aid station at the top. That was tough. I had a nice chat with the aid station marshalls, said "Let's do this" and started on my second lap. I knew this was going to be lonely, and it was. It felt like there was nobody else on the road left, they'd all finished already. I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I could do this, but at around 14 k I met a dark place again and had to stop to walk for a bit. It didn't help that my hips were absolutely killing me by this stage (what I used to call a "pain party"). I decided that I would walk for a minute and then carry on running. At around this stage a guy with a yellow shirt came past me, and I finally realised it wasn't just me on my own on the second lap. I struggled on, convincing myself that I could do it and slowly getting past the mile markers and on to the next aid station. For some time I followed a guy with a red cap. Earlier on, the faster swimmers were wearing red swim caps and in my slightly beleaguered state I was convinced this guy was still wearing his red swim cap! He was slowing down so I actually ended up going past him and finally found out that he was wearing a red baseball cap as opposed to a swim cap! I made it, somehow, to the last aid station. I was so glad I was almost in tears they were still there, and worried I was going to get cut off. They tried to encourage me that the finish was still there at the end and I was nearly there. The final bit of the run goes through the forest and the trail goes in a straight line. I didn't realise how long this path was from the first trip around and ended up shouting (when nobody was around) "Will this path EVER end?!?" I was having real trouble breathing and had to try and calm myself down so I didn't end up panic breathing. After quite a lot more plodding eventually the masts of the boats at the harbour finally came into view. I was so glad to see these! And so I made it through the marina and the people clapping, actually running up the hill to the finish... I was through to the end!
I couldn't quite believe I'd finished it... again! All that pain and endless training for seven hours and 50 minutes of effort.

Afterwards, I couldn't help but feel a bit low. I don't normally like to talk about this, but I started wondering why I am a triathlete. Why I continue to put myself through these things when I am clearly absolute rubbish at it (3 hour half marathon... some people can finish a whole marathon in that time). Whether I should just give it up as a bad job. Wondering whether I deserve to call myself a Triton, and why nobody has taken me to one side and asked me to leave (like they did at a badminton club I was once a member of). I just thought about the fact that half the Tritons I was with had left by the time I'd finished, and this made me feel unworthy. However, then I got a couple of messages who said that they were so proud of me it helped me feel a bit more proud of what I'd achieved - I'm now a double half ironman!

Now, when's the next one?